PAH Spectroscopy from 1-5 $\mu$m

Abstract

The PAH model predicts many weak emission features in the 1-5 $\mu$m region that can resolve significant questions that it has faced since its inception in the mid-80s. These features contain fundamental information about the PAH population that is inaccessible via the much stronger PAH bands in the 5-20 $\mu$m region. Apart from the 3.3 $\mu$m band and plateau, PAH spectroscopy across most of the 1-5 $\mu$m region has been unexplored due to its low intrinsic intensity. ISO and Akari covered some of this wavelength range, but lacked the combined sensitivity and resolution to measure the predicted bands with sufficient fidelity. The spectroscopic capabilities of the NIRSpec instrument on board JWST will make it possible to measure and fully characterize many of the PAH features expected in this region. These include the fundamental, overtone and combination C-D and C$\equiv$N stretching bands of deuterated PAHs, cyano-PAHs (PAH-C$\equiv$ N), and the overtones and combinations of the strong PAH bands that dominate the 5-20 $\mu$m region. These bands will reveal the amount of D tied up in PAHs, the PAH D/H ratio, the D distribution between PAH aliphatic and aromatic subcomponents, and delineate key stages in PAH formation and evolution on an object-by-object basis and within extended objects. If cyano-PAHs are present, these bands will also reveal the amount of cyano groups tied up in PAHs, determine the N/C ratio within that PAH subset, and distinguish between the bands near 4.5 $\mu$m that arise from CD versus C$\equiv$N.

13 page, 5 figures, 2 tables

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• The High-Resolution Far- to Near-Infrared Anharmonic Absorption Spectra of Cyano-Substituted Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons from 300-6200 cm${}^{-1}$
• Near-infrared spectroscopy of a massive young stellar object in the direction toward the Galactic Center: XCN and aromatic C-D features
• Machine-learning identified molecular fragments responsible for infrared emission features of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons
• PDRs4All XVI. Tracing aromatic infrared band characteristics in photodissociation region spectra with PAHFIT in the JWST era
• Detection of Deuterated Hydrocarbon Nanoparticles in the Whirlpool Galaxy, M51
• Laboratory measurements of stretching band strengths of deuterated Quenched Carbonaceous Composites (D-QCC)
• PDRs4All: XVIII. The evolution of the PAH ionisation and PAH size distribution across the Orion Bar